**Source:** Lenin Collection XIV, p. 258
**Date:** January 1917

...open opportunists of Germany (Bernstein, Kolb, etc.) deny it directly, while the official programme and Kautsky do so indirectly, remaining silent about it in everyday agitation and tolerating the renegadism of the Kolbs and Co.

Bukharin was written to in VIII. 1916: "let your thoughts on the state mature." But without letting them mature, he rushed into print, like a "Nota bene," and did it in such a way that instead of exposing the Kautskyites he helped them with his own errors!! And essentially Bukharin is closer to the truth than Kautsky.

*Neue Zeit* XIX, 1 (1900—1) (No. 26, 27. III. 1901), p. 804: M. Beer on the decline of England with remarks about its imperialism, decay, and the imperialism of other countries.—NB He also: "Social Imperialism," *Neue Zeit*, XX, 1 (1901—2), p. 209 ff. (the Fabians) and "The Present Condition of Trade Unionism," ibid., p. 43 (NB) (("*Imperialistisch-soziale Aera*"))
XIX, 2, p. 197: Walter's article on "Russian imperialism"... ((from Peter I to China in the 20th century))

**MARX: CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME.**

Engels's letter to Bebel was written 28/III. 1875. Marx's letter to Bracke with a critique of the Gotha programme was written more than a month later: 5. V. 1875 (*Neue Zeit* IX, 1; 1891) (1890—1894, No. 48).

At first glance, Marx appears in this letter to be far more of a "statist"—if one may use that vulgar expression of our enemies—than Engels.

Engels proposes (1) not to speak of the state at all; (2) to replace this word with: "commune"; (3) even declares the commune (i.e., the "dictatorship of the proletariat") "already not a state in the proper sense,"—whereas Marx says nothing about all this, but on the contrary, even speaks of "the future statehood of communist society"!! (*Neue Zeit* IX, 1, p. 573).

At first glance this might create an impression of flat contradiction, confusion, or disagreement! But this is only at first glance.

Here is the completely decisive (on this point) passage from Marx's letter:

(("Present society" is capitalist society, which exists in all civilized countries, more or less free from medieval admixtures, more or less modified by the particular historical development of each country, more or less developed. On the other hand, "the present state" changes with each state frontier. It is different in the Prussian-German empire than in Switzerland, (572) it is (573) different in England than in the "United States." "The present state" is therefore a fiction.

"However, despite the motley diversity of their forms, the various states of the various civilized countries have in common with one another that they rest on the basis of modern bourgeois society, more or less capitalistically developed. They therefore also have certain essential characteristics in common. In this sense one can speak of 'present statehood' as opposed to the future, when its present root, bourgeois society, will have died away.

"The question then becomes: what transformation will the statehood undergo in a communist society? In other words: what social functions will remain there, analogous to the present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically; and no amount of combining the word 'people' with the word 'state' a thousand times will bring one a single step closer to its solution.

"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of revolutionary transformation of one into the other. To this period also corresponds a political transitional period, and the state of this period can be nothing other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (Marx's emphasis).

"The programme concerns itself neither with the latter nor with the future statehood of communist society.

It is clear that this is a reproach; this is clear from the following phrase: the programme "concerns itself" with old democratic drivel, and not with the questions of revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and the statehood of communist society...

"Its political demands contain nothing except the old well-known democratic drivel: universal suffrage, direct legislation, popular right, popular militia, etc. They are merely an echo of the bourgeois people's party, of the Peace and Freedom League"... (573)...

(These same demands have already been "realized"—only not in the German state, but in others, in Switzerland, in the United States. These demands are appropriate ("am Platze") only in a democratic republic. The programme does not demand a republic, as did the French workers' programmes under Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon,—one cannot do this in Germany, so one should not demand things appropriate only in a democratic republic from military despotism... even vulgar democracy "stands immeasurably higher than such a sort of democratism, which keeps within the limits of what is police-permitted, logically inadmissible".)

In these words Marx as it were foresaw all the banality of Kautskyism: sweet speeches about all sorts of good things, transformed into a beautification of reality, because the irreconcilability of the democratic world and imperialism, democracy and monarchy, etc., is obscured or left in the shade.

Thus, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a "political transitional period"; it is clear that the state of this period is also a transition from state to non-state, i.e., "no longer a state in the proper sense." Marx and Engels, consequently, do not at all contradict one another on this point.

But further, Marx speaks of "the future statehood of communist society"!! Thus, even in "communist society" there will be statehood!! Is there not a contradiction here?

No:
I—in capitalist society the state in the proper sense
II—transition (dictatorship of the proletariat): the state of transitional type (not a state in the proper sense)
III—communist society: the withering away of the state.

Complete consistency and clarity!!

In other words:
I—the state is needed by the bourgeoisie
—the state is needed by the proletariat
—the state is not needed, it withers away.

I—democracy only for the rich and for a small layer of the proletariat. [The poor have no time for it!]
II—democracy for the poor, for 9/10 of the population, suppression by force of the resistance of the rich
III—complete democracy, becoming a habit and therefore withering away, yielding place to the principle: "each according to his abilities, each according to his needs," see p. 19 in the margin

I—democracy only as an exception, never complete...
II—democracy almost complete, limited only by the suppression of the resistance of the bourgeoisie
III—truly complete democracy, becoming a habit and therefore withering away... Complete democracy equals no democracy. This is not a paradox, but the truth!

To the question of the state there also relates a most essential passage of the Critique of the Gotha Programme devoted to the economic analysis of future society.

Marx criticizes here (p. 565—7) the Lassallean idea of "undiminished labour income," shows the necessity of deducting a fund for covering the worn-out part of the means of production, a reserve fund, expenses for administration, schools, sanitation, etc., and continues:

"We are dealing here not with a communist society which has developed on its own basis, but on the contrary with one which has just emerged from capitalist society; which is therefore in every respect, economically, morally, intellectually, still bearing the imprint of the old society from whose womb it came. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back—after the deductions—exactly what he gives. What he has given to society is his individual labour quantum. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual working hours; the individual labour time of the separate producer is the part of the social working day supplied by him, his share of it. He receives a certificate from society that he has supplied such and such a quantity of labour (after deduction of his labour for the communal fund), and with this certificate he draws from the social stock of articles of consumption as much as costs the same amount of labour. The same quantum of labour which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another" (566).

"Nothing can pass into the property of individuals except individual articles of consumption." "But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given quantity of labour in one form is exchanged for an equal quantity of labour in another" (567).

This equality of right presupposes inequality, real inequality between people, for one is strong, another is weak, etc. individuals "would not be different individuals if they were not unequal" (567),—one will receive more than another.

Thus:
I "long travails of labour"
II "first phase of communist society"
III "higher phase of communist society"

"But these defects are unavoidable in the first phase of communist society, as it has just emerged, after long travails, from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure and the cultural development conditioned by it.

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual under the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has disappeared; after labour has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!" (567).

Thus, here clearly, distinctly, precisely two phases of communist society are distinguished: